My dad is a special person, not just because he became my dad when I was 2, but because he is CRAZY in the funniest, nicest way that made childhood, and growing up, pretty decent.
He taught us to jive to Peggy Sue, by Buddy Holly, and when we were about to wear him out, he'd say "oh, I've go to sit down, I've got a bone in my leg". I was probably 8 or 9 before it actually dawned on me that EVERYONE has a bone in their leg!
He also loved Shirley Bassey, and one song in particular epitomizes how I feel about my dad now. Hands Across The Sea.
We'd laugh at how wobbly has knees were when he jived. years later, Traze and I went to a rockabilly do ... and realised that ALL the guys legs did that jiggly knee thing. LOL.
Back in those days, when you "went up" from the Infants school to the Juniors, George Tomlinson School took you out to London Zoo for the day. I had to miss that school trip, I had a bigger event to go to. It was the day my dad formally adopted me.
That weekend he took me to the zoo by myself. I remember ice cream and seeing Guy the Gorilla, a sight that I've never forgotten and still saddens me. That huge gorilla in that tiny cage.
I have lots more memories of my dad. He worked at the Bank of England Printing Works in Debden, and sometimes we'd go by tube from Leytonstone to wait on the platform for him to come down the footpath that ran from the bank to the station, and then catch the tube home or sometimes go from there to visit his mum, nanny Bland, and sister, aunt Marie.
We used to laugh at him riding a bicycle, and I remember him having a Lambretta and some kid of motorbike, and then a maroon and grey Bedford van that he learned to drive in. He and my uncle David were working on that when my sister, Veronica, was born in the upstairs bedroom. Fathers were def not i attendance at births in those days.
I miss seeing my dad, he still has his sense of humour, and I wish I was there to celebrate his birthday with him.
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